Clark + Kensington Paint

I recently had the chance to test out Ace Hardware’s Clark + Kensington paint. Ace Hardware hooked me up with both interior and exterior paint to try out for my laundry room and the exterior door leading to it.

They first sent me a color deck to choose from, and my first thought was niiiice. These are some great colors.

I could tell that each and every color was well thought out and I felt like I couldn’t go wrong with any of them.

Our laundry room has existing beige tile with dark gray grout and the walls were just a basic white.

I’d love to change out this tile someday (or at the very least, change the grout color), but as I’m sure many of you can relate, I’m working with what I have for the time being. My goal in this room was to take the focus away from the floors, but still compliment them with the right paint color. I decided on Baby Elephant which is a dark warm gray that I thought would tie in nicely to the floors and contrast against our white appliances.

Our exterior door from the patio leading into the laundry room started out like this. I know, right? I’m so glad I had the chance to finally spruce this up.

Painting this door was final piece to finish off our patio renovation. The goal for me here was to choose a color that would help highlight and coordinate with the flagstone and our bronze furniture. Our house has a medium blue trim, so I didn’t want to compete with it and create a rainbow effect by introducing another color. But I also wanted to do something different from the same blue we have on the rest of the exterior trim, so I picked out a dark bronzy color called Spanish Eyes.

And can I just say, I’d love to be the person that gets to come up with paint color names. Baby Elephant and Spanish Eyes, what fun color names.

I started out painting the laundry room since it was February at the time and too cold to tackle painting the door. See my first swipe of paint? This is some good coverage.

The paint rolled on equally well. I also appreciated the low VOC formula in this tight space.

Ah, so much better now. Since it is a paint in primer in one, I couldn’t have asked for better coverage going from white to a darker color like this. It was easy to apply and went on super smooth.

Not surprisingly, I’ve been finding lots of excuses to throw things in the wash now.

The darker color cozies up the room nicely, and as I hoped, it looks great with the existing tile. Before when I would walk into the room, all I saw staring back at me was the gray grout. Grout grout grout, and not in a good way. Now I hardly notice it. I’m always so amazed at what the right paint color can do for a space.

Does this look familiar? I had some fabric left over from my no sew table runner that I thought would add a little color and pattern in here by framing it.

Baby Elephant looks great with colorful accents.

We had a long run of cold weather for awhile here, including an early March snow, so I had to sit and stare at the can of Spanish Eyes couple weeks while I waited for the weather to warm up. Torture for a paint lover like me! We finally had a gorgeous couple of days this past weekend where I could paint the door. Me + 60 degree day + a gallon of paint = a perfect Saturday afternoon.

The exterior paint can be applied in temperatures as low as 35 degrees…so when I say it was too cold, I mean too cold for me. The paint can handle it.

I like to use a combination of a small roller and a brush when painting doors. I use the roller to get a lot of paint on the door quickly, then I smooth it out with a brush. It helps keep the brush marks to a minimum this way, and it’s fast! I used that technique with the Clark + Kensington Exterior paint, and it worked flawlessly.

First, I rolled (with a paint smudged thumb, apparently).

Then I brushed. Rinse, repeat. You can still see a lot of brush marks in this picture because it was really wet. They smoothed out almost completely as it dried.

It has true one coat coverage.

The color looks even better than I expected. It really works so well with the stone patio and furniture, and it coordinates really nicely with our existing blue trim. It was the final touch our patio needed to finish up its overhaul, and it is a welcoming entry into our laundry room.

There is another door to our garage right next to the one to the laundry room, so I tackled it as well and couldn’t be more pleased with the outcome. Marty and I kept finding excuses to walk outside on the patio to check out the doors. Such an improvement.

I definitely think the Clark + Kensington line of paint is a great bang for your buck since it starts at just $25.99/gallon, and if you use your Ace Rewards card, it will count towards your points.

Have you had a chance to try out Clark + Kensington paint? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Hi- I have spent the last two weekend repainting my first floor. I love the Ace Paint- Clark and Kensington- it covers really well and the low fumes is remarkable. I think your colors are great. Thanks for your bolt!

I love that color you chose!! And those pretty flower pictures on the wall – they are so cheerful! I just used this brand to paint my interior doors black and love it. I’m a huge Ben Moore fan and nothing ever lives up to that paint, so I was pleasantly surprised by the coverage of the Clark & Kensington paint.

Was excited to try the Clark kensington paint but have to say the paint ran alot. It was a nightmare. Maybe we got a bad batch? I have never had this happen with any other paint we have use. I have used Benjamin Moore, Behr, and even Lowes paint and not had this issue. Very strange.

Hello – hopefully you see this in the next few hours, but we’re painting our kitchen cabinets. Do you know or have an opinion on whether or not Clark & Kensington makes a paint that would fit this job? Recommendations we’ve seen have been for something like Benjamin Moore Advance, so we’re wondering if C&K make something like that.

What a nighmare! I’m painting white over white. Two coats and imperfections sitll show through. This is Clark & Kensingtons best? I’m painting a two story house, with a brush and roller. I paid the extra so I would be insured the one coat coverage, not happening. This stuff runs like water. Today is the third coat. You can bet this won’t ever happen again. I’m so frustrated by this product. I had a ladder slip and lost a window on the second coat. Will try to be a little more careful on the third coat.

I loved reading this post! It’s wonderful to see someone else have such great experiences with Clark + Kensington paint. Thanks for showcasing a number of different projects and uses for the paint, too. I used to be a tried & true Sherwin Williams fanatic, however, after painting with C+K paint in four different areas of my home in the last 6 months, and in colors ranging from light to dark, I’ve become a HUGE FAN!!!

It is seriously great paint, coverage is awesome, and it rolls on smooth–I use Purdy White Dove3/8″ nap rollers and Purdy brushes, which helps, I’m sure. Another awesome tip is that since Ace sells Benjamin Moore paint in-house, you can have any C+K paint tinted in any of those fabulous colors since all the formulas and conversions are already in Ace’s system! BONUS–no color matching by trial & error! I’ve done this a number of times and the match to Ben Moore’s swatches is BANG ON! I also love C+K’s reasonable price–it’s every good (perhaps better sometimes) as the more expensive paint brand and for steal-of-a-deal, too! Get yourself a gallon of C+K paint today!

Just got 2 gallons of this paint. Two different colors. This is the best paint I have ever used. Goes on smooth and one coat. From this point on I won’t use any other paint. Made my life a lot easier. Thank you.

Can we upload an exterior picture of our house and see how different colors would look on it? We already have two sample cans of paint to try, but would love the option of trying more w/o the 50 mile trip to the store. I don’t see a place to do that on your website and time is wasting!
Thanks,
kjr

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i really love this color on the pictures. It looks gray on the pics but the paper sample looks like it’s in the brown tones. Our small bathroom has only one small window so there is not a whole lot of light. Is this a gray color and would this make the room dark?

Love the paint and colors you choose and I hope mine goes on equally well. I have exterior trim I am about to be painting and they told me it would work great, which I hope it will. Thanks for doing this review I found it very interesting! Maybe your next project could be to get matching door handles for the 2 doors pictured it looks odd with a dark and light handle, just saying!!! Happy painting.